(A patient is getting ready for discharge and needs prescriptions. A bunch of us call and make sure we can find the cheapest prices in town. This is not an easy task, as there are quite a lot of them. While at the nurses’ station, I hear this exchange:)

Nurse: “Ma’am, this is your discharge paperwork. Here are the prescriptions your doctor talked to you about. We found them cheapest at [Pharmacy] for you; it should only run you about $50. Do you have any questions?”

Patient: “I can’t afford no $50.”

(Everyone looks dumbfounded, because her extremely expensive alcoholism is what brought her in in the first place.)

Nurse: “Well, that’s the cheapest they come, and if you don’t take them, you may end up back in the hospital.”

Patient: “That don’t matter; the government will pay for that.”

Nurse: “Still, it’s not good for your health.”

Patient:*now yelling at all the nurses present* “Y’all can’t all just pitch in and give me the $50?”

(She stayed at the nurses station for an hour until one of the nurses nearly wrote her a check out of annoyance. That poor woman. Eventually, security had to be called.)